Offline with Jon Favreau - Inside the MAGA Reaction to Charlie Kirk’s Assassination

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Charlie Kirk’s assassination has rattled people on both sides of the aisle and terrified those whose jobs, like Charlie’s, involve talking about politics on the public stage. Jon reflects on the aftermath of the killing, what he finds most alarming, and his disappointment with leaders on the right and followers on the left. Then, the Bulwark’s Will Sommer joins the show to break down how important Charlie Kirk was to the MAGA movement, how the right is reacting to new information about his killer, and how Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly are all scrambling for control of his legacy and Turning Point USA. Jon closes out the show by answering Offline producer Austin Fisher’s questions on the ripple effects of the assassination.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Keep a classic and cool this fall with long-lasting supplies from Quince. Go to quince.com slash offline for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash offline. Free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash offline. We saw Pam Bondi saying, we're going to have hate crimes. We're going to pursue these hate crimes. I think Bondi's mistake was phrasing it in a way that Republicans have been taught to fear

hate crime laws or hate speech laws. And so they said, whoa, wait, you know, that's about us maybe. Whereas one Maha guy I follow, I thought it was funny, he was saying, you know, whoa, well, hate speech, let's not talk. That's not American. We want purges. We want roundups. It's like that, that's a trigger phrase for them and they don't like that. I'm John Favro, and you just heard from the bulwarks Will Summer, who I talked to earlier today about Charlie Kirk

their rights reaction to the assassination and some of the theories that have been racing around the internet. But I want to start today's show with a longer open about how I've been processing the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination. So I've said a few different places now that Kirk's murder really rattled me. Part of the reason, at least initially, had to do with the fact that he was killed doing what we've all done for years, answering questions about politics at public events. but what's honestly rattled me more has been the reaction. I can't say I was completely surprised by the White House response. Our government was already planning a campaign to cripple progressive organizations. They've already cracked down on free speech.

I mean, they grabbed an international student off the street, threw her in the back of a van, and locked her in hellish conditions because she co-wrote an op-ed in the school newspaper. They raided the house of a former senior White House official after he went on TV and said things that made the president mad, and there are now at least a dozen other investigations into people on his enemies list. They've got military patrolling our streets, masked agents, tearing people away from their families and saying they'll bring them back if they're good. They're ignoring due process, court orders, threatening judges with impeachment, threatening to bankrupt media companies and universities. The government crackdown on free speech and civil liberties has

clearly been accelerated by Kirk's assassination. But it's been happening for months now. They didn't need much of a pretext because they never really bothered with a subtext. But what's really alarming to me is the intensity of the rage they're directing not towards the person who murdered Charlie Kirk, but towards the political opposition, which includes millions and millions of Americans, which includes us. And it's not just coming from MAGA influencers and activists and supporters either. It's coming from the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Attorney General, the most powerful people in government. Trump says the left is evil and hateful. Stephen Miller says Democrats are a domestic extremist group.

J.D. Vance just used the term terrorist sympathizer to describe a liberal writer who wrote a piece he didn't like that explicitly condemned political violence. I think we're in a very bad place right now. I feel like we've been there for a while, and I imagine a lot of you have felt like that to. The last year has been scary and exhausting and infuriating. Not only has no one come to save us, no one's really offered a coherent plan to fight back. And then Charlie Kirk gets assassinated by a kid who believed his political views and rhetoric were so hateful and harmful that he deserved to die. I understand the impulse that's led people on the left to embrace a

steady stream of theories on social media that suggest the killer is really a right-wing groiper or a disturbed nihilist or someone whose only motive was concerned for his partner who is trans or maybe the text messages between the killer and his partner were fabricated which is the latest conspiracy circulating among some very online lips but the most likely explanation by far is one i think we should reckon with that according to what his mother told police, Tyler Robinson had become more political and left-leaning over the last year, and that according to his texts, he'd had enough of Charlie Kirk's hatred and killed him because, quote, some hate can't be negotiated out. Now, I haven't had any interactions with anyone who is

celebrating or justifying Kirk's murder, though I have unfortunately seen some of the viral posts and videos, which I find repulsive. I felt the same way watching a crowd of people cheering the other day after a judge dropped two criminal counts against Luigi Mangione, who believed that a health insurance company's decisions were so harmful that its CEO deserved to die with a bullet in his back. But I have had a number of interactions with people on the left, some of whom were listeners, that have also rattled me. I've read a lot of messages that start with, he didn't deserve to die, but. I've seen people equate the harm that comes from hateful words or repressive policies,

with the harm that comes from extinguishing another human life. I've heard people argue that because America has always been a violent country, maybe we're getting closer to the point where political violence is necessary in the face of an authoritarian regime. After all, we fought a violent revolution to win our independence. We fought a violent civil war to end slavery. Maybe if enough Germans had engaged in political violence before Hitler's fascist regime took power,

we could have avoided World War II. I want to persuade you that this is horseshit. Targeted assassinations and acts of political violence are not like wars fought with armies. For one, they are rarely successful in bringing about anything but more death, disorder, and repression. I would bet that the tens of millions of Americans who've died in war and the families they left behind would have traded anything for one last chance to fight for a political solution instead. Dr. King was absolutely right when he told us that violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem.

It merely creates new and more complicated ones. King's civil rights strategy wasn't rooted in pacifism, but nonviolence. There's a difference. Nonviolent resistance is an active political force. It's also difficult and risky. John Lewis and the people who joined him on that bridge in Selma knew there would be a good chance they'd get their heads bashed in, but they also knew that those images

might convince the people watching at home to support their cause. And they did. And that's because nonviolence is a political strategy designed to persuade to win the perpetual battle for hearts and minds. It is the foundation of democracy.

And over the last hundred years, it has been far more effective than violent conflict in bringing down repressive regimes. It's not even close. I keep hearing people say there's no place in this country for political violence, which, sure, but it's more than that. The very purpose of politics is to figure out a way to live together without violence.

The killer said, some hate can't be negotiated out. Sure, maybe that's true. But just because politics has failed in the past to prevent violence, just because it seems to be failing now, doesn't mean that we should give up on it. that we should give up on speaking and acting and fighting in a way that represents our best attempt to change people's minds, to bring the rest of the country a little bit closer to our point of view. I'm obviously biased on this point because that is what we're trying to do here at Crooked. It's what I've tried to do for most of my life. But I think we're right.

And we would love for you to join us. And now here's Will Summer. welcome back to Offline. Thanks for having me. I want to start today talking about who Charlie Kirk was and what he meant to the MAGA movement. I'm very familiar with his work. You certainly are. But I feel like some of our listeners, particularly listeners who are not in his target demographic, may not quite understand how important he was to the MAGA movement and to MAGA media. You wrote last week, more than anyone else with the surname Trump, Kirk is the figure whose rise best illustrates the changing of the American right. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean, Charlie Kirk was a guy who really came from obscurity over his 13 years in politics. He's someone who started kind of a young Rush Limbaugh fan who decided to try to adapt that kind of mix of entertainment and politics to his generation. And he launched Turning Point USA a little before Trump ran for office as sort of like a campus, a young people. conservative group. And then ultimately sort of amassed this real empire in a way of sort of

organizing and get out the vote as well as kind of like a media empire with his podcast and talk radio show. And so he was a sort of a unique figure even within the right. I mean, obviously we're used to these kind of right wing media figures who also play in politics. But you know, he was a he was a confidant of the Trump family. He had he raised millions and millions of dollars. He had a huge staff behind him as well as a big media microphone. So he was a he was a very influential guy and had really sort of was almost like a surrogate for the Trump family in terms of what would, what they would and wouldn't allow in the MAGA movement. Yeah, it did seem to me from the outside that, you know, there are some MAGA media types and influencers who are, I guess,

for lack of a better word, very establishment, because now MAGA is the establishment of the party. And then there are some who will, you know, sort of say their own thing, disagree with the president once in a while here and there. And it seems like Kirk was very much within the mega establishment. Yeah, I mean, you know, the moment that springs to mind is over the summer when the DOJ tried to close the Epstein case. And people like Charlie Kirk, Megan Kelly, they went out there and they were like, look, we love Trump, but even we want answers.

And it lasted about three or four days. And then Trump calls Charlie Kirk and says, cut it out. It's over. And then Charlie Kirk comes back that Monday and says, I'm sick of talking about Epstein. We're moving on. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about Turning Point USA, which Kirk started in 2012 when he was 18. Can you talk about the founding of that organization and specifically how it differed from other Republican youth organizations of that time period?

Yeah, I mean, Turning Point USA, you know, Charlie Kirk had a real gift even as a very young man for raising a lot of money and sort of getting donors to see these kind of elderly donors, usually to see him as sort of a beloved nephew or girlfriend. grandson who could adapt conservatism in kind of a more entertaining. And, you know, I hesitate to say cool here because I'm not saying like these like are the coolest, I think, to the average young person. But for young people who are at all interested in politics, I mean, they were able to brand it as I think a much more lively and a contemporary kind of answer to what it is to be a young conservative. I mean, some of its rival organizations, like the Young America's Foundation, Young Americans for Freedom, they, I mean, they were just, it's a lot of blazers. It's very C-PAC look.

It's kind of Alex P. Keaton, whereas you look at what Turning Point USA created, and it was these conferences where there would be some kind of like mini scandal off about like a hookup or a fight. If you look at like Benny Johnson giving his speeches, there's pyrotechnics. I mean, in a lot of it's the images that TPSA has used to memorialize Charlie, he's surrounded by like big fireworks or explosions. And that really was the vibe that it was, you know, usually in like Miami or like some sunbelt kind of fun city to visit.

And so in that way, I think it just made the idea of, like, kind of being a conservative foot soldier and operative seemed like a lot more enticing of a lifestyle than it had been. And when did he start the college debates, going to college campuses and debating? And when did that whole thing come about and how did it come about? Yeah, I mean, I think that was really right around when Trump started running for office around like 2016, 2015. And, you know, he wasn't the only person to have done this stuff. I mean, people may remember the big meme with Stephen Crowder sitting at the table saying, you know, change my mind. prove me wrong. But really, it sort of became Charlie Kirk's signature tactic, I guess. And, you know, look, he would go to these debates. This would produce these media moments of, you know,

Charlie Kirk owns blue-haired social justice warrior. You know, and it's something that I think particularly in the first Trump administration, we saw a lot of a kind of conservative sort of poking these progressive universities by showing up on campus, Stephen Crowder, Milo Unopolis, people like that. But I would say it was really sort of became Charlie Kirk's thing. most famously. You know, I've heard from some folks on the left who, you know, criticizing people who said that they were just, you know, it's just a good debater who's just go out there and just hold these debates and that was, you know, sort of upholding free speech, that the debates were, to put it politely, advantageous for Kirk in the way they were set up. Is that, is there truth to

that? What was it about the format of the debates that always had him sort of owning the lives? Well, you know, I mean, it's sort of like anything, any talk radio show or anything. I mean, this is a guy. He has the mic. You know, his staff controls access to the mics. He's in the position of power. And again, I mean, you know, this is a guy who is not always taking on, you know, professional debaters like himself. I mean, these are often college students who are nervous, you know, in front of all their peers or anything. But I do think, you know, a lot of the footage that has, you know, resurfaced after the assassination shows him, you know, it's not like, you know, screaming at these kids, often coming off as empathetic. But, of course, I mean, ultimately, like, the point there was, I think, not to have him get owned, you know, by college students, but rather it was to sort of emboldened conservative students win over independence and I think also to kind of create these social media-friendly moments. You, I think, noted last week that Kirk also helped lay the groundwork for Trump to really embrace the manosphere in the, in the 2024 election.

How did that come about? Yeah, I mean, Charlie Kirk was, you know, in the aftermath of the assassination, I think it's become clear that he was a guy who was known not just within political media, but was sort of a figure and sort of a meme in his own way outside of that. I mean, he was very big on TikTok. You know, he would go on these podcasts that are sort of apolitical, like bros hanging out, cultural podcasts. And so in that way, I mean, I think that both expanded his brand, but it also sort of showed the way for people like Trump, J.D. Vance, that you could, that there was an advantage. in reaching out to these groups. And frankly, I mean, I think we're not really engaged, ready to give him the most scrutiny of his talking points. But he was obviously someone, I think, who came across well on video on podcasts. Our friend Peter Hamby wrote a piece about how he was, you know,

recognized on college campuses and mentioned that Generation Lab found that Kirk was almost universally known among college kids. Ninety-four percent of students, had heard of him, which is just, you know, as Peter notes, a remarkable level of name ID for any political figure. And then the next set of data is most college students were not fans. A combined 70 percent of students said they were either strongly disagree or somewhat disagree with Kirk's views. Only 30 percent said they agreed. Does that feel right from your sort of reporting both on the name ID and sort of the split on the college campuses? You know, I think that makes a lot of sense.

I mean, as you said, that's an enormous amount of name recognition. you know, for anyone to achieve, and particularly someone who is sort of otherwise sort of a conservative activist and sort of debate figure, but to be that well known. And I think he's also, you know, someone who recognized like Trump that, you know, even bad attention can be, can redound to your benefit. I mean, this is a guy whose organization went through a lot of like real high profile disasters initially. You know, there was this this protest where students dressed up in a diaper to sort of dress, you know, symbolize crybaby liberals. You know, and a lot of like the operatives within TPA USA turned out to be racist, that this would kind of resurface these like racist text messages and stuff. But again, I mean, he kept building this organization. And I think he also frankly was a guy who like I think a lot of liberals saw as as annoying kind of this maybe like a pipsqueak kind of, although a very tall guy. But sort of this, you know, kind of this kind of nerd type perhaps. And I think a lot of people didn't take him seriously on the left. And I think we saw with the most recent Trump election by then turning point USA.

had grown into this real behemoth politically. And did he have rivalries within the MAGA movement or across the right? Yeah, I mean, I think what's really emerging after this assassination, and in particular, just the past few days, is he was, you know, he was not seen as like a universally beloved figure before his death. And I think, you know, in the aftermath, obviously people were, I think, of all types were mourning him and upset by his murder. but, you know, it's also worth noting that, you know, he was seen as, again, a very establishment figure who's going to run sort of with whatever the Trump line was for the most part. And then, you know, Nick Fuente is the white nationalist podcaster, I think would be his kind of most famous foil. Someone who's almost a, I described him earlier today as sort of just a more evil Charlie Kirk. I mean, he's obviously a more racist anti-Semitic. He was at Charlottesville. But both like very young guys who were these kind of podcasters and who had their own.

sort of audiences and fan base. And, you know, this sort of climaxed in, I believe, 2019, when Charlie Kirk had said he was very open to, you know, anyone who graduates from an American university from another country should get a green card to stay. And so this is a very kind of like Jeb Bushian model of immigration or Mitt Romney. And Nick Fuentes, of course, who's a racist, said, oh, you know, this is awful. We need to. We're taking people from India, etc. And so his fans start crashing Turning Point events. And Turning Point, like Dan Crenshaw is getting shouted down, And Turning Point, it turned out to basically have no way to stop this. And so instead, Charlie Kirk, I think, you made this decision to basically say, okay, well, I'm going to become much more hawkish on immigration.

Up to this year, he's saying there needs to be a ban on even legal immigration from the third world, which, you know, I think we can read as non-white countries. So he was very much also, I would say, like, a player who was sort of shifting with the wind and subject to the same dynamics that, you know, any other right-wing media figure is. Yeah, I noticed that, too, in sort of looking back. on his journey on the right, which is that he, I don't know if he became more radicalized, but he's certainly more mirror, some of his now most famous rhetoric that's been going around certainly mirrored the far right more than it did, I think, earlier in his career. Yeah, I mean, this is a guy who came up originally as sort of a tea party, you know, young Republican, a Marco Rubioian figure.

And I think he recognized that, you know, Trump was the direction of the party was headed in. And, you know, he could have stood against that and probably, you know, had his organization dwindle into irrelevance. Or, you know, he obviously decided to get very close with the Trump family. And I think in particular, his tone in the second Trump administration, you know, I think like the Republican Party in general, became much harsher, much more hawkish. Bye. Cook Unity. I love Cook Unity. I was excited when I saw the Cook Unity sponsoring this podcast because I've been a Cook Unity subscriber for a couple years now. Basically, you go online to get all of these different chefs who come up with new meals every week. There's like 300 and something meals to choose from. So the variety is fantastic. It's fresh. You just put it in the oven to reheat it or you put it in the microwave, whatever you want. And, um, There's a lot of healthy choices. There's a lot of choices for people who just want different, whether you want a lot of protein or carbs or you want something healthy or you want some comfort food. Cook Unity is wonderful.

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and media figures and politicians as well on the right compared to other moments? like Butler or 2020. Yeah, I mean, I would say, like, the level of rage and this desire for revenge is really, really high. And, you know, I'd say, like, even more so than Butler or perhaps even the election loss in 2020, although, you know, I mean, they did January 6th then, right? So it's, it's, it's, I think there's a real desire for revenge. You know, I'm seeing people say there's a lot of kind of distractions going on.

I think the right is a little unclear about which. direction it wants to go in. I feel like there's sort of a sense almost of, I think they really wanted the suspect to turn out to be like a blue-haired social justice warrior type. And even though, you know, we're seeing these police statements, these messages that suggest, you know, he was coming from some sort of like LGBT rights point of view from what we've seen so far. I think it's still like a little muddle that people seem kind of mad about it. And so to that effect, we're seeing people like Steve Bannon, a lot of really prominent Republican figures say, you know, there has to be more this story. The FBI has to be covering something up. And, you know, nevertheless, I think the

Trump administration is very focused on the goal here, which is using this as sort of a pretext to do some kind of like Victor Orban style crushing of left-wing institutions. And it does seem like they were planning that long before this happened. And I mean, I guess, I think Stephen Miller said that, like, Charlie Kirk's last text to him was, you got to go after the these radical left NGOs or something, something to that effect. There's a lot of people who are saying, you know, Charlie Kirk's last wish to me was, insert my policy goal, you know, here. And, and, but you're right.

I mean, even before this happened, obviously, the Trump administration was going after universities or liberal law firms, things like this, you know, cowing media companies. But I do think here that they really see an opportunity. I mean, we saw Pam Bondi saying, you know, we're going to have hate crimes. We're going to pursue these hate crimes. And so I think there's this effort. It's still a little vague at this point. I mean, we're seeing people even kind of emerging from right-wing media to say, like,

well, I've come up with a way that you could go after George Soros. We saw J.D. Vance complaining he's going to pursue whoever funds the Nation magazine because they wrote an unflattering article about Charlie Kirk. I mean, so I think it's still really early days in terms of what they would get up to. But, I mean, it's obviously very disturbing the language they're using. I was talking about the ban thing again, because it was interesting to me, you know, once they read the texts yesterday when they charged him between the killer and his romantic partner and then they put out the charging document it was that the evidence is there for everyone to

see there's a little bit of a horseshoe theory thing going on where like there are some folks on the on the left who are like the texts aren't real they doctored the texts and then you also got that from Steve Bannon and some folks on the right that they're not real because they want it to be the right wants it to be a larger conspiracy than just one person and the left doesn't want it to be someone who has progressive views on LGBT issues.

What can you talk about some of the other conspiracies? Well, also that conspiracy, but also some of the other conspiracies on the right that have popped up around Charlie Kirk's assassination because I also know there's a, there's like an Israel thing going on.

Yeah, the Israel thing is really hot right now. Yeah, I mean, basically, I think the key thing to understand here is that the support for Israel is sort of like maybe along with Jeffrey Epstein, although even that is kind of fading away. I think a lot of young Republicans have kind of decided that they're cool with hiding what's ever in the files about Trump. But I think that Israel is sort of like the dividing line in sort of the young MAGA movement and in right wing media more broadly. And so you're seeing even initially after the assassination, there were people saying, you know, whose issue is, they're always critical of Israel.

And they're saying, maybe it was the Mossad. It looked like a professional hit, whatever. But now we're seeing, and I'm writing about this in my newsletter, I mean, it's sort of, in the past few days, it's become sort of an omni feud. It's like the right is a flame. I mean, Charlie Kirk, as far as I know, it hasn't even been buried. We haven't had the funeral. And yet we're seeing this just like, there's this scrabbling for control of his legacy. And so you see people like Kansas Owens, who was friends with him and is very anti-Semitic.

You're seeing Tucker Carlson who's very critical of Israel. Megan Kelly, who's like, weirdly, I think she sees which way the wind is blowing and she's jumped on the Israel critical train, they're all saying, or, you know, Charlie was, he was getting mad about Israel. He was starting to voice his concerns. And then these donors, you know, Tucker Carlson was saying, these donors were really giving him heat. They wanted Tucker Carlson banned from Turning Point conferences. I mean, and that's true. And so, but there's a lot, there's like a huge amount of drama related to, like, what does the legacy of Charlie Kirk really mean? Who has a claim to it? And really, I mean, also, who's going to control Turning Point USA? Right, right. I mean, there's a – but I think Tommy brought this up on Positive America, but, like, conspiracies about Israel being involved got reached such a fever pitch that, like, Netanyahu was asked about it. Yeah, Netanyahu was asked about it, and he said, you know, it's ridiculous. I mean, there's this weird – there's also, like, a weird thing at play here where the –

Netanyahu is, like, incredibly involved in the American right-wing podcast scene, and so he's, like, meeting with people like Tim Poo. He clearly cares very, it's like you're, you're launching military attacks in all these different countries. Yeah, and you're meeting with the Nelk boys. You know, in this case, he basically, Tucker Carlson seems to have been very offended that Netanyahu talked about, you know, Charlie Kirk's devotion to Israel and felt that, you know, the Kirk legacy was being hijacked. I mean, Carlson brought this up with J.D. Vance when they were like kind of filling in on the Charlie Kirk show or J.D. Vance was. And so, I mean, this is like a really live issue. Bill Ackman's been pulled into it because they, you know, Candice Owens has claimed he was threatening Charlie Kirk over Israel.

So it's, and again, I mean, we are talking a week after this shocking, bloody assassination. And so I think there are a lot of people on the right who are sort of shocked by like the scrabbling for advantage that's already taking place. One other thing that's happening on the right after Trump and Vance and Bondi have all come out and said they're doing this crackdown is much like after the uh when the epstein thing blew up you have some people some mega figures saying um what is this attack on free speech i don't like this criticizing bondi for it um is that how do you see that is that like uh do you think that has some staying power do you think it'll be like epstein where you know a week later when they just

go after some left wing free speech they're going to be like oh no that's okay we're back on board or do you think there are figures on the right who are so deeply invested in free speech that they are going to continue criticizing this administration? You know, I think it may be like the Epstein thing in that I think some qualms will continue to persist for sort of the Trumpian grassroots or conservatives or sort of Trump-leaning independence, people who are saying, you know, this isn't really what America was about. On the other hand, I think these right-wing media figures, like with Epstein, will fall in line. I mean, they're really thirsty for some kind of like a show trial or some kind of crackdown that destroys at least a couple, you know, liberal non-profits, something like that.

You know, I think Pambandi's mistake was phrasing it in a way that Republicans have been taught to fear hate crime laws or hate speech laws. And so they said, whoa, wait, you know, that's about us maybe. Whereas, you know, one Maha guy I follow, I thought it was funny, he was saying, you know, whoa, Oh, hate speech, let's not talk, that's not American. We want purges, we want roundups. You know, I mean, they are seeing, they want, like, there's like, it's like that, that's, that's a trigger phrase for them, and they don't like that. They want things like, I mean, we saw Laura Lumer say, you know, Trump said he wants to be dictator, and I think, you know, that might be a good idea. So, I mean, there's a sense that they have a lot of political capital, but there's a bit of a disagreement about how to use them.

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professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash offline. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash offline. When Vance was hosting Charlie Kirk's podcast, he said, quote, it's a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far left. You're an expert in an extremism. That doesn't seem like a statistical fact.

I mean, as someone who has made his career covering many people that could be classified as lunatics, I would say the right has more than its fair share. Yeah, I did think it was interesting when he went on to say, we have some crazies on our side of the aisle. Of course we do. I was going to be like, someone should ask him a follow-up on that one, see if he's anyway. Well, you know, I think someone pointed out that, you know, amid this Republican complaint about, you know, calling Donald Trump Nazis and saying.

The J.D. Vance, obviously, once, I believe, called Trump a Nazi or Hitler before making his MAGA turn. Sure did. And RFK Jr., I think, too. So we're learning more about the shooter. We learned some from authorities on Tuesday. I think there was some thought on the left early on that the killer might be part of the Groyper movement. this does not seem to be the case now, but just for people to understand this, what is a gropeer? Where did these theories come from, which are now, I think, gone, but who knows?

Yeah, I mean, I hope this day would never come that I would have to explain to the all-flight audience what a groiper is. But yeah, I mean, Groyper, so people remember Pepe the Frog. So followers of Nick Fuentes and sort of general, like, Gen Z, racist, online around 2018, they got sort of a version of Pepe the Frog who was like a fatter

toad and he would hold his kind of look like this. He would sort of suspend his hands looking very smug. And that's Groyper. And so they started to call themselves Groyper. And so the idea is you're a hardcore Nick Fuentes follower. And as I mentioned, you know, there was this thing where Nick Fuentes, I mean, up until, you know, up until the assassination, Nick Fuentes was very critical of Charlie Kirk. You know, he was saying, you know, that this guy is a real nemesis of the gropers. And so after the assassination, I think a lot of people on the left, not unreasonably, I think thought, well, you know, maybe it was a groper. But really, there's really no evidence of that. I mean, people point to this how he dressed up as this Slavic squat meme. And people say, well,

that's a pepe thing. It's not really a pepe thing. I mean, you can, you can really get into the weeds on that. But I really just, even before we saw the messages between the roommate and the suspect, I really just think there is basically zero evidence. And I think it was a lot of, you know, Look, I don't blame people on the left for, like, really hoping, you know, after this happened that it was someone on the right. Because we're seeing the Trump administration use this as a pretext to seemingly criminalize, like, half of politics. But, you know, I do think having gone through the evidence we have, I just don't think it's there. And the engravings on the bullets, that was another thing that people were trying to go one way or the other or trying to figure out ideology. What do you know, I mean, Groyper or not, what do you know from sort of, you know, your,

coverage of these right-wing spaces, whether it's on Discord, whether it's gamers, wherever else, where the places are where they overlap with either far-left views or maybe just people who are nihilist in nature or anarchists? What are the corners of the internet where you might find people who, it may be hard to tell what their actual ideological alliances. Yeah, I mean, these are worlds that are very awash in memes, in irony, sort of triple, quadruple layers of irony. You know, a lot of video game talk. You know, I mean, for example, like some of the messages on the bullet casings were from the game, Hell Divers, too. Well, you know, I think people took that, well, that's a Gryper favorite. I mean, that's like a popular guy. I have that

game. You know, there's nothing sinister specifically about that game. And so I think, you know, we're talking out like places like 4chan um you know discord obviously has figured prominently here which is sort of like slack for you know people who are too young to have jobs perhaps and you know it's you chat with your gamer buddies as we've seen from the the the chat logs from the discord the suspect's discord that have come out it's a lot of kind of like just you know shooting the shit with your pals and then suddenly this suspect says you know by the way i shot charlie kirk um and so it's the i think a lot of the the confusion about the suspect's motives admittedly there hasn't been a ton to go on, particularly up until the indictment yesterday.

But I think a lot of the confusion, it just, I think a lot of it's just kind of young male internet culture in terms of the memes that I think are pretty inscrutable for people outside of it. You mentioned this earlier, but I just want to follow up before you go, what do you think happens to turning point? And is there some kind of inter-Maga struggle for who takes over and the direction it heads? I mean, this is a huge, I mean, this is like maybe. like the biggest issue facing right wing media and even the Trump administration, you know,

for the next couple months. I mean, I think obviously there's been understandably an effort to, there's been a lot of focus on Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica Kirk. There's no like clear successor. I mean, there are people who sort of came up under him like Benny Johnson, Candice Owens, although she's not coming back, but she's almost, as I said, she's kind of doing her own parallel claim to his legacy. But I think ultimately, I mean, we're talking about millions of dollars, tons of

of young activists, and I think a lot is going to shake out, you know, I'm hearing grumblings about this big stadium memorial service, you know, who's getting speaking engagements, you know, whatever. But I think, you know, to be frank, I think there's a possibility that this organization is kind of a drift and, you know, perhaps some donors are going to step up and assert it. But a lot of that, it's like you can have a lot of money, but, you know, are you going to bring that Charlie Kirk audience? Are you going to have that credibility? And the last thing I would add here is, like, it's very closely watched who is getting close to. to Turning Point in the aftermath here.

For example, Ben Shapiro broadcast from Charlie Kirk's studio earlier this week with kind of the Daily Wire Gang. Obviously, he's very pro-Israel. And so this has been taken as a sign of, you know, oh, no, Israel's taking over, Turning Point USA. We saw Marjorie Taylor Green insane. She says, you know, this is a Christian, this is a Christian organization. We can't allow another religion to take it over.

I mean, there's a lot of, I mean, I'm going on here. But, like, there's a lot of religion stuff at play here, too. specifically because Charlie Kirk was a Protestant. And so you have Candace Owens really randomly basically saying, not only was he about to become critical of Israel, but he was also really close to converting to Catholicism. And so, you know, there's this Jewish aspect as well. And so there's just like a lot of tension and kind of back and forth

about what it meant to be Charlie Kirk and what he would have wanted. Yeah, I mean, look, I put this the right way. Obviously, a lot of the people in that movement who knew Charlie Kirk and we're close to him are devastated by this. It also seems like it's only been a week. And this assassination is being seen by many people on the right and within the MAGA movement as a way to, like you said, stake their claim to his legacy or do something that they had wanted to do

previously or make a point and an argument they were trying to make previously. And it's, I just, it makes me wonder about like how the likes, plays out and sort of like the staying power of the sort of unified rage that they feel right now. Yeah. I mean, I think there are a lot of people on the right who would prefer to see this used as some kind of quasi-fascist crackdown who are getting very frustrated with the Israel critics who are saying, you know, like this is our chance to arrest George Soros or something on some pretext and you guys are making it about Gaza and Netanyahu and you're kind of like taking oxygen out of our scheme. I mean, this is, and people are saying this like quite explicitly.

They're like, this is our chance to crush the left. What are you doing? And, you know, ultimately, I think this can seem a little kind of factional and, like, why are we so focused on these interneesigned fights? But, I mean, this is a lot of this is the Trump administration. I mean, a lot of this is sort of the future of politics here. And so I think you have these big personalities bumping up against each other in this, like, incredibly emotionally charged moment.

Well, Summer, you're reporting on this is excellent, as always. Thanks for coming by. False Flag is your newsletter. I wish to go subscribe at the bulwark and do a lot of great stuff there as well. so thanks for joining. Thanks for having me. After the break, my producer Austin joins me

so we can answer some questions. Offline is brought to you by Smalls. In today's political climate, one thing certain, your cat is running a dictatorship. And their first executive order, they want our next sponsor, Smalls, for every meal.

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We're answering a couple of questions. Love to answer questions. So basically, after the both summer conversation, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. I had asked some questions in the Discord. Just to kind of get your take of how you are feeling. in our new political environment. So I just want to start with last week, and then again today on this show, you started both of the shows saying that one of the reasons you've been so shiggin up about the killing

of Charlie Kirk is that he spoke to people who cared about politics and then organized them, which is the work that you are also doing. It's the work that we do here at Kirk and Media. I'm just curious, like, overall, how has this changed just your approach to this work? How are you feeling overall? Are you anxious? Like, do things feel different to this new environment for you? Yeah, I started anxious.

and worried and then as the week has progressed I have become angrier and frustrated would be the new in particular with anyone well angry at

this government right angry at the Trump administration infuriated that they are using this as a very flimsy pretext to launch a crackdown and and so I think like I said I think this was already planned but I think this is accelerating it in a big

way um frustrated and i you know obviously mentioned this in the open but um the it's weird i feel like i when when people not don't justify violence or celebrate violence because like i said i don't i have not encountered those people thankfully though i have seen them out there um but even think maybe violence is necessary soon and i don't know and i you know like and no one no one no one should feel, no one should be made to feel anything about Charlie Kirk that they don't already feel, right? Like, your feelings are your feelings. So screw that debate. But like, you know, we're trying to bring down an authoritarian regime. We're trying to oppose them. We're trying to keep this country together. And some of the debates, some of the back and forth about violence and this

and that. It's just, again, I'm not mad at the people. I'm not even frustrated with the people. I'm like frustrated with myself. And I was like, I feel like this is the core of what I have wanted to get across to people for so long. And clearly it is not working. Yeah. Which is why I tried to double down today. Um, after reading your intro before we jumped in here, I really wanted to ask how much of the reaction, both on the left and on the right, are you attributing to like social media algorithms? It feels to me that this moment more than any other moment has really been dictated by our political discourse happening online rather than offline. I feel like even just five years ago in like a pre-Eleon Musk Twitter,

like the reaction would not be this. Do you feel the same way? Yes. And I think it's a key point. And thank you for bringing it out because I've been thinking this week that we talk on this show so much about like the algorithm is in social media and what it's doing to the discussion online and our public debate is mediated through these platforms. And so the debate is a mess.

but sometimes I worry that we leave people the impression that it is all just happening online clearly the reaction we're seeing the murder itself is a result of bad things that have been happening online for quite a while are now bleeding into real life and sort of changing people changing people's perceptions of the world

of politics of what is acceptable of what is not acceptable the one thing I didn't mention in the open that I probably meant to, was that, and we mentioned it on PSA briefly, but I keep thinking about that, G. Eliot Morris, who's a polling analyst, and he has a substack, so you can check it out, but he talked about this study where you ask people, do you think political violence is justified, and then you get the answer, and then you say, okay, what percentage of the other party do you think believes political violence is justified and they give their percentage and they always

overestimate what the percentage is on the other party. And the key is when they know the information of just what percentage the other party actually believes in political violence, their pension for political violence goes down. So part of the reason people think it's okay is because they think the other side wants it. When in reality, we are spinning each other up because the only people we see on social media or on TV are the people who are, you know, most extreme. Yeah. One thing that I've also wanted to ask you is you open this up talking about like turning down the heat on this rhetoric and pushing people back against political violence. We're seeing the president, the vice president, Stephen Miller just kind of like accelerate

and throw gasoline on a lot of this rhetoric. Do you think it's possible in this kind of like social media media environment and without the support of the president to turn down this rhetoric right now and like what kind of work is it going to take from us to turn down the heat the reason that i focus so much on violence is because i think the turn the rhetoric down thing is bullshit and um like i want to be honest i i think i have been i do think this is a an authoritarian regime um i think he has broken the law i think he is violating the spirit of the constitution if not the letter of the Constitution. I am very concerned,

and I do not think that saying those things is in any way sort of increasing the possibility for violence. But I think for all of us who believe that, too, you have to be pretty clear, not just because of Charlie Kirk, what happened to Charlie Kirk, but always that we are facing an authoritarian threat,

we believe that the best way to oppose it is through nonviolent resistance. Like, sounds maybe academic, Maybe it sounds simple. Maybe it sounds obvious to people. I think it is worth keeping that framework in your mind so that when you are saying things, posting things, whatever else, you can think, okay, does it fit within that framework of, you know, nonviolent resistance? Okay, if it does, great. What kind of nonviolent resistance do you want to see more of, like right now from people? How do I see people get more active, not online, but like in real life? I mean, I think, well, I'll start with online, though, because I do think that, again, for better or worse, and we think worse, this is where our public debate is mediated online. I do think that people, everyone has a platform.

Everyone has the ability to go online and make their opinions known and to talk to their friends, to talk to their social network. And I think that people who have, people who are also worried about the place we're in right now and who also don't want to. violence, but who are, have turned away from politics because for a number of really good reasons, I think it's a good time for those people to speak up, good time for those people to be, I know this now too. It's like, you know, I'm talking about the people I've talked to who, you know, had some things that disturb me. And I'm like, okay, even if it's not social media, even it's just people reaching out directly, it is, I am getting a sample size that may not be representative of where opinion in the country actually is. And I think partly that's because

a lot of people who participated in politics in the past have been like, fuck it, I'm out, this is terrible, I don't want to deal with this anymore, I'm going to do something else. And maybe that's not true, but if it is true, I would love those people to speak up and come back. I've been thinking a lot about, to my experience, the No King's protests a couple of weeks ago, and just how that kind of released a lot of the anxiety I was feeling about this administration and how that anxiety is just coming back into my bloodstream these last couple of weeks and just looking for that type of action again, or just those kind of conversations with folks. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely more protests.

I definitely think, you know, when we talked to Erica Chena with about this on PSA, I think that, you know, there's other tools, there's boycotts, there's strikes, right? Like that could be down the road. There's basically the point is there are a number of things that we can organize around and we should organize around before anyone starts talking about violence. Absolutely. I got two more quick questions for you. One conversation I was having with Saul, or your Pots of America producer, before we jumped into this,

was about the frenetic pace of the Internet. he was mentioning to me that just it seems that so many stories that have happened online just become like our main point of focus for so long and then all of a sudden just disappear yeah this is what happened with the trump assassination attempt in butler we're just seven days later we weren't talking about it anymore i'm just curious if this moment feels different to you or if this feels like something that might also just kind of get lost in the soup of our broken attention spans it's a great question i think it's too early to know i do see these moments as um at least in the second Trump term, that we forget about them, but they leave a mark. And I think that whether we're talking about this at all in a couple weeks from now or a month from now or wherever, the crackdown that they're promising,

that will stay with us. Like, I don't think that's something that they're just going to forget about. Though, maybe they will. Maybe they'll run up against a wall and realize that they can't do that much except, you know, yell and intimidate people. But who knows?

Kind of hope that happens. I hate asking this question. I have produced for you for a long time and people kind of always make fun of the What Gives You Hope question. But I do think I'm feeling a lot of despair. I feel like a lot of people are feeling a lot of despair right now and they've been taking that out in a lot of different ways.

But like, what words of encouragement do you have for people listening that we can leave them with right now about this moment and where we can go from here? Not much. No. Like, what should give you hope? Which is why we don't usually ask that question. I really do believe, though, like what should give you hope is your own agency. Like, every single one of us has the capacity to put things out into the world that are positive and constructive and productive and could have the potential to move us closer to the day when we do not have to deal with this anymore.

And the minute you think that you don't have that agency, that you don't have that capacity, that you're just feeling so helpless and you're in such despair and you're feeling not just cynical, but nihilistic, which is what I'm worried about now. I used to be worried about cynicism. now I'm worried about nihilism with people. But once you let yourself get there, then there is no hope, right? But as long as you can tell yourself, like, you know what, I'm going to wake up today and I'm going to read the news and then I'm going to figure out, who can I persuade? How can I make people aware of what's going on? What can I do? And then, you know, that is, like I said, no guarantee it works.

I don't have optimism, but I do have hope, which is different. And hope is that we can still make change. Hope is a hammer. There we go. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thanks, Austin. As always, if you have comments, questions, or guest ideas, email us at offline at

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